Promoting tips for your business

Promoting your Etsy shop can take time and even years to build up daily sales. Marketing your Etsy shop is a HUGE topic that many ask every day. I am still asking and researching how to get daily sales and it’s a learning process that takes patience, months, and even years. You may not have a lot cash to spend on marketing in the early stages of your startup, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t effective ways to get your brand out there. Before the Internet, small businesses only had a few ways to market their products inexpensively, through approaches like printing out fliers or sponsoring local events. Now today to help your business is the magical world of Social Media! Embrace social media because it can help you grab those customers and followers!

Take for instance, Facebook reaches so many people worldwide and by creating a page for your shop/business can help promote your name and items that you sell. Also joining multiple discussion boards/pages on Facebook can aid your shop by helping you tweak your imperfections or gain more followers and customers. Think about your items that you create and try to find discussion pages that have an interest in your creativity. I have personally joined 3 Etsy selling groups to help promote my shop, and I have join a few 3D printing discussion pages too plus I have created a Facebook page for Flymeawaycreations.

Secondly, create an Instagram and Pinterest account for your shop. This is where it takes time to build up your followers. ( I am still in the learning process of this) I try to post at least once or twice a day of one of my items or something that relates to my Etsy shop. One tool that has worked in the past with me is branding one of your items in your shop on Instagram. Brand ambassadors are essentially people that you send free product to in exchange for them promoting your brand + products on their blog/facebook/instagram/pinterest accounts. There’s another term floating around– “brand enthusiasts” who is similar, but you don’t have to give away your product for free. There are definitely pros + cons to both, but I (personally) like brand ambassadors better because they tend to push your products a little bit more frequently, simply because they get your product for free and feel obliged to make it worth your time so that you will keep them on. So how do you find these people? One of THE BEST ways to find your first brand ambassadors is to start by doing a shout-out on your social media. The people that are following you there are already some of your biggest fans and a lot of them would LOVE free product in exchange for promotion. Also think about how you tag your picture (#). For instance, what you create think about that audience and reach out by using (#) in a new way. (Example: baby items: # momtobe or #nurseryideas

Thirdly, enter email marketing. If you don’t have a mailing list yet, it’s time to change that. Mailing lists sounds so old-fashioned, but there’s a reason everyone recommends them! It’s the only marketing technique that you have complete control over. Getting started isn’t that hard– just sign up for an email service provider like MailChimp (perfect for beginners) or ConvertKit (for those a little more savvy) and start asking for those emails. Personally, I sell locally and I leave out an email list sheet for my customers and whoever that would like to sign up to receive a monthly letter/ message letting them know when I will be selling at the market and what new items that I have been creating. This is great tool to show off your newest items or even promote a sale at your shop!

Lastly, listing a new item! I’m sure you notice on Etsy that there are a lot of “favorited” items + shops. Did you know? — Every time someone favorites an item of yours or a shop, you become a part of that person’s Etsy home page ! Also, every time you list (or renew) a new item, it shows up on their homepage. It’s essentially free advertising to a targeted potential customer– someone that has already shown interest in your product.

These are a few creative marketing techniques to promote your product-based business. If you have any new ideas or creative ways that work/ promote your shop and are ridiculously effective Leave a comment and share them below!